


Anchor in a Stormy Sea

by Tokyo_the_Glaive



Series: Tumblr Shorts [9]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Quantum of Solace (2008), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, BAMF Q, Dorks in Love, Fluff, Hacking, James Bond Being James Bond, M/M, Past-James Bond/Vesper Lynd, Protective James Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-10 11:23:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6954517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tokyo_the_Glaive/pseuds/Tokyo_the_Glaive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At three o’clock in the morning approximately six months after Bond’s return from Kazan, Russia, M received word that the unthinkable had happened.</p><p>“Someone hacked our system,” Tanner told her, speaking a little too fast.</p><p>(Or, the one where Bond meets Q before he becomes Q.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anchor in a Stormy Sea

**Author's Note:**

> For a tumblr prompt given by daphneg121~ This is for you!

007’s file—his completely uncensored file, the one replete with every physical and psychological examination, every mission report, every kill—could only be accessed by one person.That person was M, currently Olivia Mansfield.The rules permitted no exceptions.There existed no set of extraordinary circumstances that could circumvent the rules, no loopholes, no compromises.It was MI6 policy, plain and simple, and it was followed to the letter.007, currently James Bond, was not unique in this treatment: every other double-0 had the same expectation of privacy.M was the only one with access to each of their files, and it was understood that M would not use the information within them for anything other than record-keeping purposes.

Of course, when rules were applied to James Bond, they tended to fall apart.

* * *

At three o’clock in the morning approximately six months after Bond’s return from Kazan, Russia, M received word that the unthinkable had happened.

“Someone hacked our system,” Tanner told her, speaking a little too fast.Even though she had just been woken, M could see Tanner as if he stood before her in her bedroom, sweating bullets and trying not to stutter.Beside M, her husband rolled over, concerned about the sudden call.“He’s good,” Tanner continued.“He claims he got through our security in under a minute, and frankly it doesn’t look like an empty boast.We never even saw him.”

“Someone’s claimed responsibility for the attack?” M asked, sleep falling away from her voice to leave nothing but clipped, sharp anger.“What did he take?”

“That’s the thing,” Tanner said, “it doesn’t look like he took anything.He accessed 007’s file—” M swung her legs out of bed, cursing, “—but that was it.”

“That’s it,” M echoed in disbelief.Did Tanner actually find that reassuring?“Christ.I’m coming in.”

“Don’t bother, ma’am.”

The voice on the other end gave her pause.

“Bond,” she said.“What in the hell are you doing there?”

“Apologizing.I’m afraid this is my fault,” he said, sounding utterly remorseless.“So sorry.”

M shut her eyes and slumped over in bed.Beside her, her husband sat up, watching her with half-lidded eyes.The two shared a look, and he scooted closer to rub circles into her back.She shut her eyes and breathed, willing herself not to wish Bond a dead man several times over.

“Bond,” she said, “what have you done?”

“Nothing,” Bond said, the lying prick.M’s good intentions went out the window, and she found herself half-wishing she could strangle the handsome bastard herself.“However, the hacker is quite good.”

“Are you really praising the madman who stole your file?” M asked.“Every cover you’ve ever had—all of your pending operations have just been blown.Surely even you understand the ramifications.You’ll be grounded for months while we work damage control.”

“I trust him not to use the information against me,” Bond said, voice serene.“He’s far from mad.In fact, I like him.”

M wanted to scream.

“I take it you know who he is, then,” she said through clenched teeth.She was going to kill Bond.It was only a matter of time.Either that, or he’d be the death of her.Moving him to the double-0 section had to be the worst decision she’d ever made—

“I do,” Bond said, “and soon, you will, too.When he dropped the MI6 servers, he left something behind for us.”

“Dare I ask?”

“His CV, ma’am,” Bond said.“For the record, I think you ought to hire him.”

* * *

_Two hours earlier_

* * *

“You don’t believe me?” Bond couldn’t honestly say that he was hurt or surprised, but somehow the disbelief stung anyway.

“I believe you’re a very dangerous individual,” came the response.Bond could hardly see his lover through the dark of the bedroom, even though the little light from outside that managed to get through the gauzy curtains caught on his glasses and his skin as he moved.Bond sat on the edge of the bed, tie partially undone, while his lover sat near the pillows at the headboard.“I didn’t suppose you were government, though.I figured you to be a mercenary.”

Bond frowned, knowing that his lover likely couldn’t see it.“I’ve told you nothing but the truth,” he said.

His lover squirmed, coming closer.“I want to believe you,” he said.“I want that to be true.”

Bond held out a hand, and his lover grasped it, long fingers wrapping around Bond’s calloused palms.

“I was afraid you would be disappointed,” Bond admitted.

“Because of what I do?”

“Yes.”

The light from off of his glasses disappeared as his lover came even closer, dark hair and pale skin emerging from the shadows.He looked at Bond with a soft expression.

“I’m not disappointed,” he said.“I just don’t know how this works now.”His fingers came up to cup Bond’s jaw, and Bond leaned into the touch.

“Nothing has to change,” Bond murmured.

“If they find out about me—”

“They won’t.”

“And if they do anyway?”

“I’ll protect you.”

Serious, dark eyes bore through Bond.“And if we fall out?” he asked.“What then?”

Bond wished he could say with certainty that they wouldn’t leave one another, but—he was himself, and this was the first real thing he’d had since—

“You see my fears,” his lover said.Sadness filled his smile.

“What if you,” Bond said, “came with me?”

“Eh?”

The idea had only half-formed in Bond’s mind before he was talking: “You could apply where I work.You wouldn’t have to hide anymore.”

In front of him, his lover went still.

“They would arrest me,” he said.“If I came forward—”

“They won’t,” Bond said.“I promise you that.”His lover’s hands trailed down his neck to his shoulders.

“I’ve been working against them—against you, I suppose,” he said, “for years.”

Bond shook his head.“I’m not MI5,” he said.“What you’ve done, it’s been for good.It’s more than I can say for some of my own work.”

His lover sat back.“You think I should become a _korpoczłowiek._ ”

Bond smiled at the term.“I don’t think you could ever be a _korpoczłowiek._ But I want you to know that I’m serious,” Bond said.“I’ve told you nothing but the truth.The position I’m thinking of would pay well, too.You’d be able to do as you have, but it would be official.”

“Worried about my finances?”

“I worry about everything when it comes to you,” Bond said, speaking into the shadows in his lover’s skin.“I worry constantly.”

“And if I say no?” his lover pressed.“If I decide that freelance is still the best way to make a difference?”

“Nothing changes.Not with us, anyway.”

“And if I say yes?”

“The same,” Bond said, “except you’d have a paycheck to go with saving England.We might see each other more often, too, though I’ll stay away if you prefer.”

“Why would I want that?”

“If we fell out,” Bond said, hoping it wouldn’t happen.“I have something of a reputation as a ladies’ man.”

In front of him, his lover snorted as he rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck.“Really?” he asked, voice dripping with sarcasm.“I never would have guessed.”He sighed and sat back, thinking.“There’s a thought.”

“Mm?”

“It’s unconventional, but it would give them an idea what they were getting into.I could confirm what you’ve told me, and submit an application of sorts, but I would need your help.”

“Go on.”

* * *

M read the CV once, then a second time with a greater degree of care.  Her husband had gone to the kitchen to make tea, and she’d put Bond on speaker so that she could read and talk simultaneously.

“He claims responsibility for the resignations of both Goddard and Uther, and those are just the most recent,” she said.“They pled guilty to child molestation charges after incriminating photos were released to the press.Do you believe he was actually responsible?”

“Yes.I have it on the only authority that he accessed their personal records.”

“I would ask how you know this, but something tells me I’d rather not know.”Bond remained conspicuously silent, never a good sign.“Police have been looking for him for the past eighteen months,” M said, “and you want me to hire him?”

“Yes,” Bond said.

M looked at the top of the CV.The hacker—Bond refused to give over a full name, though he undoubtedly had one—had given Bond’s home address and the single-letter moniker of Q.It was too much of a coincidence—that was Major Boothroyd’s title, after all—for Bond not to have had a hand in the choosing.Bond and the hacker had clearly orchestrated this little stunt—to get the hacker a job?To prove a point?Bond’s motives were never clear.He gave M a headache.

“He’s more than good,” Bond said.“It would be a mistake to pass him over.”

“I take it you have a personal and vested interest in this man,” M said.Her husband returned to their bedroom with a teapot and two cups.M accepted hers gratefully.Her husband kissed her cheek and came to sit next to her.He put in earbuds—he listened to Ashkenazy’s recordings of Chopin’s _Nocturnes_ loud enough that she could hear the music, too, and he wondered why he was going deaf—and set to reading the collected works of Tennyson.

“I might,” Bond said. _Unrepentant_ , M thought.

“If,” she said, “and it is an if, I do decide that this man is the right fit for us, where precisely do I put him?”

“Q Branch would be a start.”

M might have known.“You’re joking,” she said.

“I’m not.”

M took a sip of her tea to keep from sighing loudly.“You want me to put one of our newest and worst threats to national security—”

“He’s not a threat,” Bond said.For the first time since he’d taken the phone from Tanner, he sounded aggressive.He _did_ have a personal stake, then, and a strong one.An idea grew in the back of M’s mind.“Not to us.”

“If I hire him,” M said, buying time while she considered her options, “Five’s going to go berserk.They want him in a cage, not behind a desk.”Bond didn’t bother responding.After all, when had M ever given half a damn what Five thought of her department?

M licked her lips and took another sip of tea.The idea had fully formed, and it was a good one—possibly the best one she’d had in matters concerning Bond.The problem with Vesper had been one of proximity: M had had no jurisdiction over her movements.If Bond cared so much about this hacker, and if the hacker was indeed placed within Q Branch—one of the few departments anchored almost exclusively on domestic soil…

“Does this man have a name, then?” she asked, decision made.

“Only if you intend to hire.”

“Would I ask if I didn’t?”

M could see Bond’s smile in her mind’s eye.

“Of course not, ma’am,” he said.“It’s—”

* * *

The very next day, a bespectacled, slightly bewildered-looking boffin in a cardigan walked into MI6 headquarters, took the elevator to Q Branch, and got to work.

If Bond came and flirted shamelessly with the new hire, well, wasn’t that just Bond being himself, wasn’t it?

“You’ve been out of sorts lately, my boy,” Boothroyd told Bond, clapping him on the back after observing the display.The new hire’s ears were still red from the flirtation, and Bond wore a charmingly smug smile.“Glad to see you back at it.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Bond said, looking back to the boffin—hardly a man, more a boy, judging by his frame.“I do believe I’ll be keeping this one.”

* * *

Hardly a year later, Bond dropped into M’s office without an appointment and without a mission on the horizon.  His behavior was irritating, though harmless: he’d dropped in on an empty appointment slot.

“Ma’am,” he said, grinning.

“007,” M said.

“May we?” Bond asked, gesturing at a chair.M frowned.Bond stepped aside to reveal—

“Ah,” she said, sitting back.The man behind Bond, with his boyish features and glasses, smiled slightly.“Please.Do close the door behind you.”

Bond shut the door, pulling out a seat for his… M didn’t exactly have a word for what they were.Bond had gotten this hacker, one of the best they had seen, a job.Since then, M had received periodic reports—concerning politicians, peers, and other prominent figures in the geopolitical sphere both domestic and abroad.The intel was spectacular but had to be very carefully managed lest it fall into the wrong hands.

Thankfully, they were in the right business for that.

Bond sat beside the hacker, taking his hand in his own.M’s eyes zeroed in on the gesture immediately.

“Ma’am,” Bond said, “we have news.”

“It’s about time,” M said.The hacker’s entire face flushed, the red tinting even his ears.It was a good thing Bond hadn’t recommended him for field work; he had no poker face.“Though I daresay even I didn’t expect this.”A lie, but a harmless one.

Bond looked at his hacker—his boyfriend? Companion?—with such affection, M was reminded of her own marriage, back when she and her husband had been young.He’d read from Keats at their wedding.M had never been so embarrassed, or so fond of him.

“We’ll need you to make the necessary arrangements,” Bond said smoothly.

M looked between the two of them, then rested her eyes on the hacker.

“You know what he does.”

The hacker—M had trouble thinking of him in any other terms—smiled benignly.“That is why I applied,” he said.M remembered his posh voice from their meeting on the first day.“I’m aware of James’ professional obligations.If I had taken issue with anything that he did or does, either here or abroad, I wouldn’t be sitting here.”

M looked to Bond.There was no denying that accident reports concerning the agent had remained low since his return from Kazan, and had even dropped slowly over time.Those who worked with the double-0 section attributed it to mellowing with age and preparing for retirement.M had guessed that this might happen that first night, listening to Bond go on about the merits of his mystery hacker while her husband blasted Chopin.

“I’ll see to it that it’s taken care of by tomorrow at the latest,” she said.

Bond smiled and stood.His—fiancé, M supposed—followed suit.

“We hope to see you at the wedding,” Bond said.

“In your dreams, 007,” M said.Bond’s fiancé laughed low and soft, and then they were gone.

 

(M went to the service, because of course she did.)

* * *

_Three years later_

* * *

Hours before Eve boarded a plane to Turkey to extract Ronson, an operative with an important thumb drive who believed himself compromised, she received an update to her briefing: she would be working with 007 on the operation.  The sight of those three numbers gave her pause.  She had heard about 007, a member of the notorious double-0 section. Operations between standard operatives and double-0s were not uncommon, but she hadn’t expected to receive one, at least not on this mission.  They were meant to get in and get out, easy as that.  Why was a double-0 being sent as well?

Eve thought about it for a moment longer, then pushed the thought out of her mind.It was 007.He was getting a little old for the programme, and rumor had it that he was one of the tamest of the bunch.This was probably just to get him out into the field, make him feel like a younger man again.

* * *

Eve had never been so mortified to be wrong in her entire life.

When Istanbul blew up—Ronson dead, a mercenary on the run with the thumb drive with the names of active agents, _Christ_ —Bond was positively savage.He chased the mercenary like a man with nothing to lose, but the way he fought— He was defensive, but brutal.It was a struggle to even keep up with him, much less help.

Or, it was that way, until Bond got on the train.Eve pulled off to the side and drove up as far as she could, passing the train, then got out.She set up her rifle and looked through the scope.

Bond and the mercenary fought atop one of the cars, bouncing back and forward too fast to really aim well.

M gave the order.Eve braced herself and shot.

Bond fell.

* * *

M called Bond’s husband to her office an hour after Eve confirmed Bond was done.  To her surprise, he was already standing outside of the door, hair ruffled, skin paler than usual.

M remembered, then, that he worked in Q Branch—no doubt he’d heard it happen.He knew that she had given the order, and that Eve had shot the wrong man.

The man standing before her wasn’t shaking, but it was a near thing.

M surveyed the room before her.Tanner knew, but no one else had seen the addendum.They had no idea who he was.

“Everyone out,” M ordered.“Except you,” she said, nodding at Bond’s husband.“You stay.”

When everyone was gone, she started, “Mr. Bond, I know this will be difficult for you to hear, but retrieval may not be possible.”

The man blinked at her.“I didn’t change my name when we married, ma’am,” he said.“Do you think he’ll need retrieving?”

M startled. _He didn’t think Bond was dead_.

“Did you hear what Agent Moneypenny said?” she asked.

“Yes,” Bond’s husband said, “but he has a knack for coming back from the dead.”

M found she had nothing she could say in the face of such blasé naïveté.

* * *

 Two days later, most of Vauxhall went up in smoke.

* * *

“Are you hurt?”

The question left Bond’s mouth before he was even sure the line had been picked up.His chest burned with pain, his entire body ached, but if he’d been hurt—

“No,” his husband said.“Shook up, but I wasn’t there.M’s alive.”He hesitated.“Major Boothroyd—Q—wasn’t so lucky.”

“I’m coming back.”

“I’ll pick you up.”

“Stay where you are.I’ll come to you.”

“James—”

“Please.”

The line was quiet for a few moments.Bond breathed in and out, wishing his chest would stop rattling.

“All right.I’ll be home, waiting.”

* * *

Bond flew back to London almost immediately after hanging up the phone.  He had a very soggy wallet and passport which would have drawn more rather than less attention to himself were it not for a little bit of technical assistance from afar.

He needed to speak to M—someone had taken a personal shot at MI6 and could have killed his husband in the process, something Bond considered _unacceptable—_ he would _obliterate_ them, whoever they were—but he made a detour on the way there.

A few Tube stops from Vauxhall, in a quiet quarter on a side street that saw rather less traffic than the roads surrounding it, sat a little flat inhabited by a brilliant boffin and two cats.

If Bond spent the night there before officially returning—well, he could do what he wanted within the privacy of his own home.

* * *

One month and several rounds of grueling physical and psychological therapy and Bond was cleared to be back in the field.  All he needed was his equipment and he’d be set to chase down the mercenary that had eluded Eve and himself in Istanbul—a fellow by the name of Patrice.

Bond sat in the National Gallery, frowning at the painting he was supposed to meet his new quartermaster before.Tanner had given him neither a name or a physical description, which he found odd, but then again, MI6 was changing. 

 _The Fighting Temeraire_ , the painting was.Bond couldn’t say he liked the piece—it was more in his husband’s style, all dismal colours with a stormy sea to set the tone.

“It always makes me feel a little melancholy,” came a familiar voice, sidling up next to him, “a grand old warship being ignominiously hauled away to scrap.The inevitability of time, don’t you think?What do you see?”

“The love of my life,” Bond said softly, “and a cheeky thing that shouldn’t be here.”

“007.I’m your new Quartermaster.”Bond did a double-take.“I know.M was dead-set against it, but she came around.”He smiled brilliantly.

Bond offered a hand.“Q,” he said.

Q’s smile widened as he took the hand, shaking it firmly.“007.”


End file.
